


Misery Loves Company

by mirthful_oyster



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clarke is a hermit, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Grounder Culture, Lexa is intrigued, Lexa won't leave Clarke alone, Light Angst, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Peaceful settlements, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, The Mountain doesn't exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24484384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirthful_oyster/pseuds/mirthful_oyster
Summary: Before the council has a chance to send down the 100, disaster strikes the Ark. In the middle of all the chaos, Clarke gets shoved into an old escape pod and sent to Earth.Alone on the ground, she adapts to grounder culture when taken in by a hermit.After a couple years, she finds herself on her own again.In an attempt to run from her past, she decides to shun all company and live out the rest of her days in seclusion.It would be a lot easier is the hot mystery woman would stop coming by to pester her.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 21
Kudos: 110





	1. Into The Unknown

Clarke wakes with a start as she’s launched from her bunk and sent sprawling onto the ground, hitting the cold metal with an aggressive thunk.  
Alarms start blaring loudly over the sound of distant explosions.  
Screams can be heard through the thick metal of her holding cell and smoke begins flowing in from the vents. She sees a few guards running frantically past her door’s window.  
Panic starts settling into her heart. She has to get out. Whatever’s happening, it’s serious, and with the rate the smoke is pouring in, it won’t be long before she suffers from asphyxiation.

“Hey,” She starts pounding frantically on the door. “Hey!! Let me out!!” 

Her eyes start stinging and her throat constricts. At this point the smoke is billowing in at an alarming speed. Nauseous gases from burning plastics and wires make her head spin. She hastily grabs the flimsy mattress off her bunk and presses it against the grate, her back holding it in place, a desperate attempt to slow the inevitable. 

I’m going to die in here.

Her eyelids start drooping shut and her breathing becomes more laboured with every passing minute.  
Drifting on the edge on consciousness, she suddenly feels a hand firmly grab her wrist. The hand pulls, but she’s too far out of it to follow. Strong arms then snake their way around her torso, lifting her onto her feet. Half lidded eyes try to take in whats happening around her.

“Clarke?! Clarke, we need to go, hurry, there’s no time.” 

“Mom?” She rasps, focusing her eyes on the distressed woman in front of her. She looks over he shoulder to see Wells holding her up. 

“We need to get to Mecha Station, now. There’s an old escape pod on Sub 3. Wells, can you carry her?”

“Not a problem,” he grunts as he hoists her over his shoulder. “lets move.”

They set off at nearly a sprint through masses of terrified Arkers. A few individuals yell for the councillor as they pass, hoping to catch her attention and beg for aid. Abby ignores them. It’s every man for themselves.  
With a pounding head, Clarke starts to regain full consciousness as they make their way through the ship’s corridors. Lights all around them are flickering wildly, fluorescents dancing in the heavy smoke collecting against the ceiling. The groan of shifting metal can be heard echoing through the halls, drowning out the cries of people.  
The Ark is dying.

Fully awake now, Clarke tries getting her friend’s attention, yelling over the cacophony. “Wells! What happened? W-why’s everything going crazy?”

“The Ark was hit. An asteroid crashed right into us, everything is failing. We’ve lost over half the station. We need to get out.” He pants out, still manoeuvring around other panicking passengers, sticking close to Abby. 

“Get out? Get out to where? There’s nowhere else to go.” She furrows her brow, and tries to look over his shoulder. 

Wells hesitates with an answer “There is one place.. thing is, we’re not sure what’s going to happen to us there, but we know what going to happen if we stay here. It’s our only option… Clarke.. We’re going to earth.”

Earth. 

They reach Sub level 3 in Mech Station. Clarke’s deposited back onto her feet, next to a shoddy looking spacecraft, easily a hundred years old. Without any delay, Abby starts flicking switches on the console, powering up the ancient ship. That’s when Clarke see it.  
There’s only two seats.  
Wells and her exchange worried glances.

“..Mom, you’re not coming.. are you?” 

Abby’s hands still and she looks up solemnly. There’s nothing to be said, Clarke understands. This is goodbye.  
Her bottom lip quivers and she chokes out a sob. “No. N-no, mom, I.. I can’t lose you too.”  
The councilwoman abandons the ship’s console and embraces her daughter with quiet desperation. Tears now stream steadily down Clarke’s cheeks, staining her mothers shirt. The hug is broken by a sudden lurch from the Ark. Abby leads her daughter into the pod, Wells climbing in on the opposite side.  
She brings her hand up to Clarke’s face, gently cups her cheek, wipes away a tear, and rests her forehead against the other. 

“In peace, may you leave this shore. In love, may you find the next. Safe passage on your travels, until our final journey to the ground. May we meet again.”

With that, the councilwoman shuts the door, and ejects the pod. 

Clarke’s world goes dark as they careen towards the Earth. It was as if space had greedily swallowed them up only to spit them out a moment later. The feeling is surreal.  
Before them lies the wreckage of the Ark.  
Whole stations had been obliterated in the impact and now spin aimlessly around the remainder of the ship. Hundreds of bodies could be seen littering the field of debris.  
Unable to avert her eyes, she knows the scene will be forever burned into her mind.  
Her home. It’s gone.  
Memories of her childhood come flooding to her, along with a fresh wave of tears. Next to her, Wells is completely silent, probably in shock. 

Their pod lurches as it breaches the atmosphere, and the temperature within starts rising to a dangerous level. The whole craft is shaking like a leaf. 

Perfect. Instead of dying on a big ship, I get to die on a small one. 

Then the miraculous happens. They make it through the atmosphere. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. The parachute ejects, slowing their decent to the ground. Looks like the worst is over.  
Of course, she was wrong.  
With a loud rip, the ancient parachute tears free of the pod and they plummet towards the ground. The trees fast approaching. Too fast, they’re not going to survive. Clarke braces for impact. For death.  
Closer. Closer…  
The shuttle connects to the forest with a deafening crack, flattening dozens of trees and knocking its two passengers out on impact. 

When Clarke comes to, she’s hanging upside-down, hot blood trickling down her face. She winces. The world feels like its screaming, her ears and head pound and her whole body aches. A searing pain radiates from her arm. Probably broken.

At least the air seems breathable.

Dazed, she risks a glance towards her friend.  
Mistake.  
Bile collects in her throat. He hadn’t been as lucky as her. The seat harness hadn’t held during impact. She hastily looks away.  
She’s got to get out of the wreckage.  
Using her good arm, she manages to unclasp the straps holding her in place. She falls out of her seat, landing on the ground uncomfortably. She shifts until she’s sitting right side up. Too much movement. Her vision starts going blurry.  
The last thing she sees are a pair of worn boots approaching cautiously.  
Then everything goes black.


	2. Takoda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke wakes to find herself in a strange new environment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments and support! 
> 
> I've been meaning to practice my art lately too, so I'll be adding some illustrations to the story along the way. First one can be found in this chapter!
> 
> Translations for the Trigedasleng can be found in the notes at the end of the chapter for anyone who's curious :)

When Clarke opens her eyes, she has no clue where she is. All she knows is that she’s warm, and that her surroundings seem cozy and safe. Woven tapestries decorate the wooden walls and a variety of pelts are neatly laid out on the packed dirt floor. She breathes out a contented hum and lets her lids slide shut again.

_Hold up. Wooden walls? Dirt floor?_

She jolts awake, sitting up abruptly in the small cot. A sharp pain surges from her ribs, and her arm protests against the harsh movements. She feels a few cuts open up and start soaking her bandages in blood, however, the pain of her injuries is nothing compared to the sudden agony that rips through her chest as recent events flood back to her. With a strangled cry she grasps at her chest, as if trying to claw the heartbreak out from within. It’s as if the weight of the world is crushing down on her. Her breathing comes in shallow and hot tears stream down her face.

Everybody she knows is dead.

Everything she held dear, gone.

Clarke’s sobbing shakes her whole frame now, tears coming in earnest. She cries for what seems like hours. She cries for the loss of her home, her mother, her people; she cries until there’s nothing left and her sobs are nothing more than the silent shaking of her shoulders.  
A hollowness takes over her chest, and she slowly becomes numb. She can’t even find it in herself to care about the elephant in the room.

There’s people on the ground.

. . .

Clarke doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when she wakes she realizes her bandages are fresh and she’s dressed in warm furs. She swallows a fresh wave of sorrow and tries to focus instead on the situation at hand. She’s in someone’s home.

It’s hard to believe that there’s been people living here since the bombs dropped. _Well, I hope they’re people,_ Clarke thinks.

Survival instincts kick in and she surveils the room properly. Her cot is pressed up against the back lefthand corner. An open doorway lies across from her to the right. Looking around she realizes there’s only three walls—two of them flat, intersecting one another, and the last is a long curved wall joining the two together from their far ends. A perfect quarter of a much larger circle.

She breaths in and her eyes flutter shut. Sweet. The air is heady, and sweet, accompanied by a permeating warmth. Nothing in her Earth Skills class could have prepared her for this feeling. Taking another glance around, she sees that there are shelves littered with strange containers and clay pots, along with a few clear jars holding mysterious liquids. Dried plants can be found all over the chamber, hanging from the ceiling, the walls, and collecting in large woven baskets on the floor. She’s never seen so many colours all at once. The warm hues seem to embrace her in an invisible hug and a small smile ghosts her lips. Her eyes settle on the woven tapestries next. Beautifully dyed fibres, spun together and interlaced to create vibrant patterns hanging from thick cut branches.

What really catches her eye, however, is the soft light coming from candles scattered throughout the room. She never had the chance to see fire for herself, what with oxygen being such a precious resource on the Ark, but she’d heard of workers who had due to accidents in electrical and engineering. Reaching out hesitantly, Clarke brings her hand to a pair of lit candles resting on the small table beside the bed. Drawing close to the dancing flame, the heat tickles her fingertips. Lowering the warmed digits to the table, she then lightly strokes the wooden surface.

Wood had been another resource they didn’t really have on the Ark. The closest thing she ever got to the raw material was the small tree Kane’s mother had looked after. That and the few times Wells had found actual pencil crayons to give her.

Still mesmerized with the texture of the wood, she’s completely oblivious to the large figure that approaches the open doorway. It isn’t until he steps through the threshold of the room that she sees him. It startles her, and she painfully scrambles back across the bed until her back hits the wall. He holds up his hands in front of him as if to convey peace. Foreign words spill from his lips.

She observes him for a second.

He has a long grey beard that tumbles down peppered with small braids crisscrossing down it’s length, and beads of different sizes and colours nestled into the bushy mass. On the man’s face are a thick, scraggly pair of salt and pepper eyebrows, hanging low over his kind eyes. The only thing that really stands out as different to Clarke is his worn leathery skin. It almost looks like crumpled velvet. The man is easily in his late sixties, maybe even early seventies.

On the Ark, nobody lived past sixty. It was a rule that had been established during the beginning of the Ark’s existence. The older people got, the more special care they required. More medicine, more resources. It wasn’t sustainable.

The solution to the problem was a floating ceremony. They called it the Final Voyage. That was where the saying, ‘may we meet again’ first originated. Rather than being thought of as a death sentence, the ceremony was more of a celebration of life; ready to pass from one generation to the next. Clarke hated it.

She must have been staring for too long, because the elderly man clears his throat and another strange sentence tumbles from his mouth.

“Ai laik Takoda, en lukot. En yu?”

Clarke stares at him blankly. He shifts, looking a little uncomfortable, then tries another sentence.

“Yu slip daun kom skai. Yu ai klir, beja ste, yu gaf fis op in.”

Clarke presses her lips into a thin line, debating on how to proceed.  
Finally she croaks out, “I’m sorry. I don’t understand you…” She pauses a second, looks down at her bandages and clothes and gestures at them. She looks back up at her host. “Thank you for this. I appreciate your hospitality.”

The grounder scrunches his brow and tilts his head a little, clearly confused, but gives a little nod nonetheless as if he got the gist of what she was trying to say. He points to himself and then to her and brings his hand to his forehead. When Clarke doesn’t react he repeats the gesture.

_Oh. He wants to check my temperature._

Clarke gives a small nod, giving the stranger permission to approach.

For someone built like a mountain, he moves with surprising grace. Up close, Clarke notices a few more things about him. He seems fit for his age, hands rough and calloused, beat up from years of hard work. His arms, heavily tattooed, are covered in pale scars, some big, others small, each with probably an impressive backstory.

One of the worn hands move toward her and gently rests against her forehead. Dissatisfied with his findings, the burly man grunts and steps over to a worktable. He starts puttering around the room, gathering miscellaneous herbs and tinctures. Clarke watches him with fascination. He adds various ingredients to a bowl and starts grinding them up with a smooth stone. After a few minutes, he finds his way back to her bedside and offers up the bowl with a carved wooden spoon. Using her undamaged arm, she reaches out and grasps the cool terracotta, bringing it close to her chest.

He mimes eating. “Choj op.”

Clarke stares down at the contents of the bowl. It’s lumpy and has a slimy sheen to it. She chances a quick whiff of the substance and scrunches her nose. It smells musty and sour, almost like clothes that were never put to dry. She shoots the man a skeptical expression and grimaces. A hearty chuckle bubbles from deep in his chest and he repeats the eating motion.

With a resigned sigh, Clarke sets the bowl down onto her lap and scoops the first of the substance onto the spoon.

_Float me._

She reluctantly slides it into her mouth and gags immediately. _And I thought the smell was bad._

Fighting through the urge to spit it all up, she shovels down the remainders of the sludge, shuddering as she swallows the last bite. She looks up meekly. Satisfied, the elder takes the bowl from her and offers a cup of what she assumes is water. Honestly she doesn’t care what it is, she needs purge her mouth of the vile aftertaste. She gulps it down greedily as her host pulls up a stool and settles in next to the cot. Setting aside the empty glass, he attempts to communicate once again.

“Takoda.” He announces, hand splayed across his chest.

“Takoda.” Clarke repeats as she points to him. This earns her a nod with a toothy smile as his hands clasp together in a pleased motion. She places her good hand against her own chest. “Clarke,” she says, voice still hoarse from all of her recent crying.

He bows his head in greeting. “Clarke.”

Tears prick her eyes and start falling softly down her cheeks. Hearing someone speak her name brings on a tidal wave of emotion. She hadn’t expected to hear it ever again. Takoda’s eyes widen momentarily, startled by the sudden outbreak. He then places a comforting hand on her shoulder and his eyes soften.

“Yu gonplei nou ste odon.” He murmurs. He then motions for her to lay down her head and rest. “Ste yuj.”

She complies, too emotionally exhausted to protest. He gives her one last empathetic look before blowing out the candles on the small end table. He mumbles something Clarke can only assume means rest, before going around the room and extinguishing the remaining candles.

She sobs into her pillow until a fitful sleep finally claims her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ai laik Takoda, en lukot. En yu?  
> -I am Takoda, a friend. And You?
> 
> Yu slip daun kom skai. Yu ai klir, beja ste, yu gaf fis op in.  
> -You fell from the sky. You’re safe, please stay, you need to heal.
> 
> Choj op  
> -Eat
> 
> Yu gonplei nou ste odon.  
> -Your fight is not over
> 
> Ste yuj  
> -Stay strong

**Author's Note:**

> Oookay, so this is the first fic I've ever written.  
> It's been well over two years since I've done any writing of any sort, so the first few chapters might be a little choppy until I find my groove. 
> 
> This first chapter is a little short, but hope you guys stick around, I'm very excited to get further into the story, I have a bunch of fun ideas I'm looking forward to exploring! 
> 
> Any comments are so appreciated!  
> (I'll try to post 1-2 chapters a week)


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